“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

These were the first sentences that I read when looking at the US project with the hashtag #speakoutHIV. It contains a video of boys and girls who have HIV, or who know somebody who has the virus. They talk about the problems they had with outing themselves as being gay, and/or having HIV. It is really emotional to watch, but it’s also obvious that these young people have found their inner strength.

“HIV doesn’t make me, I make me” is just one of the powerful quotes they are using. These young people speak out and we want to join them in their fight. We speak out for young people, so they think about protecting themselves. If we can achieve that, we will achieve reducing new HIV infections to a minimum. Of course there are a lot of obstacles that people have to overcome, but if everyone would help a little bit, we might just be able to overcome these problems.

Speak out yourself too by making a video, photo or message with the hashtag #speakoutHIV and join the movement, because together we are greater than HIV. What will you say in your message?